How to do a cheap sms-gateway through J2ME?

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inshadow - 10 Sep 2006 17:33 GMT

Hi

I have an idea how to create a simple and cheap sms-gateway which can
be used with different webservers (php, jsp, asp and so on).
Now can you tell me if this would be possible at all?

The idea is as follows:
We have a cheap j2me midp 2.0 and gprs enabled mobilephone.
In this mobilephone we install a small program which does this:
When the mobilephone receives a SMS message its forwarded to a
webserver through GPRS.
Also it is possible to let the webserver send a message to the
mobilephone to make it send a SMS.

The costs for this sms-gateway is limited to:
one cheap mobilephone
normal sms rates + gprs trafficrates (not much data).

What do you think - is this possible?

/Stig

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Lothar Kimmeringer - 10 Sep 2006 17:39 GMT

> The idea is as follows:
> We have a cheap j2me midp 2.0 and gprs enabled mobilephone.
> In this mobilephone we install a small program which does this:
> When the mobilephone receives a SMS message its forwarded to a
> webserver through GPRS.

So far so good.

> Also it is possible to let the webserver send a message to the
> mobilephone to make it send a SMS.

There I see problems. The webserver will not be able to access
the mobile-phone easily. It will more likely work with polling,
letting the mobile-phone ask the webserver regulary if there are
SMS to send.

> The costs for this sms-gateway is limited to:
> one cheap mobilephone
> normal sms rates + gprs trafficrates (not much data).

I don't see a save of costs. Dependent on the amount of SMS
you want to send it's cheaper to use a regualr SMS-provider.
Mostly the rates for sending SMS through their SMS-gateway
(in general webbased as well) is cheaper than sending SMS
by phone. As well you can receive SMS by most of these providers,
they will be forwarded using the HTTP-protocol using an URL that
has been specfied within the contract.

> What do you think - is this possible?

Possible? Yes (with a Blackberry you can even do the push
kind of way). More cheap? No.

Regards, Lothar

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Stig N. Færch - 11 Sep 2006 08:32 GMT

>> The costs for this sms-gateway is limited to:
>> one cheap mobilephone
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
> they will be forwarded using the HTTP-protocol using an URL that
> has been specfied within the contract.

I live in Denmark.
We have mobilephone service providers who go as low as about 2,6$ per
100 messages.
These subscription plans a free - no daily or monthly access fee. So you
only pay for the services you use.

In average 100 sms messages cost about 4$ thru a sms gateway provider.
(of course you can get even lower if you need to send a lot of messages
- say 10000 - but not lower than 2,6$/100 - if at all as low).
To this you'll have to add monthly subscription fees from about 8$ and
up. It will be much much more expensive if you need 2-way sms
communication and you own number.
If we do it the J2ME app way, you get the phonenumber for free...

How does this compare to prices in your country (Germany?)?

>> What do you think - is this possible?
>
> Possible? Yes (with a Blackberry you can even do the push
> kind of way). More cheap? No.
>
> Regards, Lothar

/Stig

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Lothar Kimmeringer - 15 Sep 2006 12:40 GMT

> How does this compare to prices in your country (Germany?)?

In Germany there are ads by mobile providers, telling that
you "only" have to pay 9 (Euro-)Cent per SMS. I'm not
sending very much SMS with my mobile phone, having a
contract with low minute-prices for regular calls, so
I pay more than that (20 Cents).

Of course, my original answer to "inshadow" was based on
these rates.

Regards, Lothar

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Lothar Kimmeringer E-Mail: spamfang@kimmeringer.de
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How to do a cheap sms-gateway through J2ME?

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